CSS overriding by several files - html

I am sorry beforehand if question is stupid, but this is my first project.
I got html.css layouts from HTML/CSS-coder, and for each view they made separate html and separate CSS file.
But I am developing SPA, so there will be one page as an entry-point. Obviously, it should contain all CSS files for all views. The problem is that some of the CSS files contain classes with the same name, but different content. So if I just put list of CSS files in the entry html, some views become a mess, because they use wrong classes.
Thanks a lot.
As I see that my question is not being understood, I decided to give example:
File1.css, used in view1:
.class1 {
cursor: default;
}
File2.css, used in view2:
.class1 {
cursor: pointer;
}
Obviously, I need both as is and cannot use !important; as this will make a browser to use only one of them in both view1 and view2.
What is correct approach to solve this? Ask html coder to re-name classes, or do it myself? Or is there some tool that can somehow consolidate CSS files automatically?
Also, how usually html/css layouts should be coded for SPA to avoid this situation?
UPDATE 1
I appreciate efforts the SO community made to help me though question is indeed could seem vague. I've already learned a lot from all answers.
The situation is much clearer for me now.

The problem in many projects such as yours is that developers do Not do what they are supposed to be doing in standard manner. The correct approach to manage CSS Files in more than 500 lines of CSS Code is to follow Modular, Structured Patterns such as BEM. These Standards guid you through the right choice for the naming conventions and writing Css Components.
For example in Twitter Bootstrap they use components and utilities to manage large projects and avoid such collisions.
Your way to get out of it
You have always the chance to write your styles inline inside the html code. This would bring a high specificity and will override Clas Based CSS of the files included.
You could provide a .css file of your own and include it after all that developre's css and !important all the mess or with the help of high specificity like ids make your CSS win!
Forget about the whole CSS They provided you and start using a framework like Twitter Bootstrap or Zurb Foundation.

Yes you are going to have to go in by hand and re-code the classes. Additionally You can add id's or an extra class to whatever section you are currently styling.
For example: <div class="CSS-coder" id="myExtraStyles"> or <div class="CSS-coder myExtraStyles">
!important will override most styles. But it would be better to edit the current classes that wont be sharing style attributes.
Additionally remember that "Cascading" means from top to bottom. So any styles loaded after the default styles will override the styles loaded before it.
I agree with the other poster in that a "framework" is the way to go.
Good luck with your project.

If I understand correctly, it seems as though you need to use parent / child selectors depending on which view it is:
file1.css:
.view1 .class1 {
// Styles
}
file2.css:
.view2 .class1 {
// Styles
}
To achieve this, look at each view and see if there's a top-level element you can append a class to, such as the <body> tag:
<body class="view1">
<div class="class1">
AND
<body class="view2">
<div class="class1">
This removes any need for !important (stay away from that as much as you can!)

EDIT
Re-reading your question I think I have a better idea now as to what your actual problem is.
What you can do is to find or add a parent element that you can use to filter out the styles.
Let's say you link to those 2 CSS files and both of them define a style like so:
/* First CSS file */
.sub-div {
background-color: red;
}
/* Second CSS file */
.sub-div {
background-color: blue;
}
On your HTML, look for a parent element that you can use.
<div class='red-only'>
<div class="sub-div"><p>View 1</p></div>
</div>
<div class='blue-only'>
<div class="sub-div"><p>View 2</p></div>
</div>
Create a custom CSS (you should link to the file last).
.blue-only .sub-div {
background-color: blue;
}
.red-only .sub-div {
background-color: red;
}

When working with css, the order is important.
The file that is declared last will have the highest precedence.Now with that in mind if you have
<link href="file1.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
<link href="file2.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
Then the code specified in file2 will override the code in file1, only if they have the same specificity. Meaning that the more specific declaration will trump even if it is declared in file1. So if you want to override a rule in file1 you will need the exact same declaration in file2.
When working with files created by others like bootstrap or similar it is preferable to create a new file.
<link href="file1.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
<link href="file2.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
<link href="myStyle.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
This will help you avoid trouble that might arise from modifying the originals.
The code inspector in chrome and firefox will be helpful when you need to check wich classes are applied to a certain element.
It might be that your element is applying a class that overrides the one you are trying to apply to the element. For example:
<div class="class1 class2 class3" ></div>
Class3 might override parts of class1 and class2, because it is the class applied last. Like i said, in CSS order is very important.
Do not use !important if possible. You might want to override values later on, and with !important will become difficult to do so. Verify if there are !important declarations in file1, because these might be the ones causing you trouble.

Are you using a programming language? Or just CSS/HTML markup? If you use a programming language (what I suppose, as you got one entry point) you could simply make a big switch statement, check the current view and then inject accordingly the appropriate css file.

Related

How can I include multiple CSS without overwriting the existing CSS?

I am using a template (A). This has some CSS files and I want to inlcude an other template (B) in this template and the other template has also some CSS files. By including the css of template B in A, some forms are looking different because of the new CSS of template B.
How can I inlcude all CSS files of both template without replacing some forms.... Can I set a priority to one CSS? Or is there a tool where I can put more CSS files which will compress all CSS files to one?
Or can I use one CSS file to only one DIV?
CSS means "Cascading Style Sheets". Here "Cascading" means that If something is found two times than the last has priority. So link the CSS file at last which you want to give priority. You can also use !important to give priority. For instance:
color: red !important;
Here red will be used overall.
I’m not completely sure what you are trying to do.
However assuming you want to link more than 1 css file to page. You could play with priorities of CSS selectors. An ID for example has more priority than a Class. You could also make them more specific.
For example:
body ul li span {
Color: red;
}
Span {
Color: blue;
}
Here the span should be red
You should try to include the CSS you want for your login page only (template (B)) into your login page HTML only, like for instance:
index.html file :
<link rel="stylesheet" href="templateA.css">
login.html file :
<link rel="stylesheet" href="templateB.css">
The objective if simply to avoid conflicts between both template, you cannot use both of them on the same page it will cause a lot of bugs and slowdown your website a lot.
Please feel free to ask me in the comment if I'm not clear about anything.

change h1 color in css based on div class with space in it

I am currently trying to change the color of a title by referencing a div's class.
So far I have tried:
.pagetitle-title.heading {
color: purple;
}
<div class="container">
<h1 class="pagetitle-title heading">IT•ONE Method</h1>
</div>
And even:
h1 {
color: purple;
}
As mentioned per my comment, it looks like a classic case of "CSS overwrite". One of the "hacks" to avoid this, is to use the CSS property !important to tell the browser which CSS rule is particularly important, and should not be overwritten.
Example: color: purple !important;
CSS applies the style in the fashion that it is loaded. So if you have 1 CSS file with x rules, and a 2nd CSS file with y rules, and they both target the same elements, then the CSS file that was loaded last will generally overwrite the styles of the one prior.
The order is known as the top-down rule, and is only overwritten by the !important property and in-line CSS. The !Importantproperty will generally overwrite any in-line CSS.
Given the information about the top-down rule, and you have the means to edit the CSS and/or choose the order of how the CSS is loaded, you can make sure that you are able to apply your own CSS rules by having them load as the last included file in your project.
Example:
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="loadedfirst.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="loadedsecond.css">'
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="loadedlast.css">
</head>
In case these 3 files have rules that applies to the same elements, the loadedlast.css file is the CSS that will overwrite the ones prior, except in the case of the !important property and in-line CSS. By managing the order of your CSS, you can avoid having to resort to such "hacks" as using the !important property.
Check your link "stylesheet" for your CSS
Open you debug console and identify your h2 to see if CSS option are targeted
Try another hexa color code
Add "!important" after touy color code
color: purple!important;
I see your code and it's correct method to modify this color so... Try my checklist first and give us your feedback.
I would avoid adding important as much as I can. I would just go higher up the parents and try to target the div as specific as I can. Instead, I would go
.container h1.pagetitle-title.heading {
color: purple;
}
If that doesn't work only then I would use important.

How to keep the original css file after including bootstrap link?

I include bootstrap link in my website like this:
<link href="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.1.1/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
And right below, I include my own css stylesheet like this:
<link href="css/header.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
But as I included bootstrap, I could no longer edit the website's style through my original stylesheet in header.css. I can still edit the website's appearance through <style="....">, but I'd like to integrate every style in the css file. Does anyone know how to solve the problem? Thanks.
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets, which may sound a bit arbitrary, but it's very important to understand that it functions exactly as the name states. The styles "cascade" down the file. You can easily override any attribute you want if you put it further down the file. If you don't want it overwritten, you give it more weight, or more accurately, more Specificity.
Many bootstrap styles are notoriously specific, and require heavier selectors to overwrite.
So first of all, make sure you're loading you header.css file _after your bootstrap.min.css, and make sure you're using specific enough selectors.
Take a look at this snippet: If you want the .alt div to be black, you'll need to make sure you're using a heavier selector if your library is using a really specific one, even if your selector comes afterwards.
/* Library.css */
div {
background: #0095ee;
color: #fff;
}
div + div.alt {
background: #ee3d96;
}
/* Custom.css */
.alt {
background: #000
}
<div>I'm the first div</div>
<div class="alt">I'm the second div</div>
<div>I'm the third div</div>

CSS - Class not registering when combined with bootstrap

I have a weird one that I can't seem to be able to figure out. I am new to CSS and decided to use bootstrap to assist with styles etc.
the problem I have is when I try to assign two classes to a div element, 1 being the bootstrap column and another from my own stylesheet.
the code from my stylesheet seems to be ignored in some cases. now i have taken that one bit of code and css out and put it into the jsfiddle but it works fine. its only when combined with the rest of the html does it seem to have issues. also note that if i use inline styles it works...
I copied the entire code to js fiddle now so that you guys can replicate the issue. the section I am having issues with is the 4 images that are side by side
class="services-boxes"
anyway any assistance will be appreciated, as well as general feedback as I am new to this all! :)
https://jsfiddle.net/d9bv0grx/1/
Due to the way cascading style sheets work it (styles are be applied in order AND by specificity). It is most likely that styles you are expecting to see are being overridden by specificity.
Give this guide a read.
An example is that for <div id="selector">
#selector {background-color:red;}
div {background-color:green;}
You can expect to see a div with a red background, even though the green background is set afterwards, the id selector has greater specificity.
Then try and alter the specificity of your selectors in your css so that they will take precedence over in bootstrap.
Also just going to add, you have casing issues - you declare the class with lowercase in css, capitalised in your html.
You also have syntax issues in your css. Your css should look like:
.services-boxes {
padding:0;
max-height:500px;
width:100%;
}
Sort all this and you should be golden! jsfiddle
Looks like a combination of syntax errors. Your style should be declared like this:
.services-boxes {
padding:0px;
max-height: 500PX;
width:100%;
}
Note that the class is all lowercase (which should match style where declared which is currently Services-Boxes), a colon separating property and value (you has used = in some instances) and one set of curly braces per declaration (the above class .logo-image has 2 closing braces). Just a bit of formatting should see your code recognised
When you don't have total control over your HTML, you can use the !important property in css to give a priority to your styles.
.services-boxes {
color: red !important;
}
However keep in mind that you have to avoid the !important property as much as possible and do not use it unless you can't do it any other way.

I want to apply an existing CSS style to all labels on a page. How?

Note, this is different than the older question How can I apply CSS on all buttons which are present in that page? because this is an already existing style. So given that a style, which we'll call "standard_label_style" already exists in an included CSS file, what can I do to say that all the labels on this page should have that style short of adding:
class="standard_label_style"
to each and every one? And yes, I know I could apply the styles ex-post-facto with a snippet of jQuery or JavaScript code. I'm just trying to learn how I'm supposed to do it with CSS.
Follow Up
I've gotten several comments that say just use syntax like this .standard_label_style, label... Unfortunately that does nothing like what I want. That would allow me to apply additional rules to the standard_label_style class, as well as rules to labels within this page, but would not allow me to apply that style to all the labels on this page. To see an example of this, here is a stylesheet and html to demonstrate. The label without a class will still not appear in red but that's what I'm hoping to have happen. I want to apply an existing class to all those labels on the page, not just the one with the class and without adding new styling on this page, the existing style should be the only style.
included.css:
.standard_label_style { color: red; }
test.html:
<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="included.css">
<style>
.standard_label_style, label { }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<label class="standard_label_style">Test Label</label><br/>
<label>Unclassed Test Label</label>
</body>
</html>
CSS doesn't really work like that.
You can apply a style to all labels directly:
label {
color: Lime;
}
or apply a class to all labels
.labelClass {
color: Lime;
}
<label class="labelClass"></label>
You can also have multiple selectors, so you could ammend your current style to be
.labelClass, label {
color: Lime;
}
What you can't do in standard CSS is something like
label {
.labelClass;
}
The good news is that there are a bunch of server side libraries which make CSS suck less and let you do exactly this kind of thing, see for example dotLess if you're using .NET which provides nested rules and a basic inheratance model.
To apply a style to every label on the page, use this CSS:
label {
/* styles... */
}
If you have an existing style (e.g. "standard_label_style") in the CSS already, you can apply that to every label:
.standard_label_style, label {
/* styles... */
}
This will affect every label through the site, so use with caution!
In your css file, can't you just put
.standard_label_style, label
{
//styles
}
.standard_label_style, label {
/* stuff */
}
I'm not sure you can... one possible workaround (feels a bit hackish though) is to attach the style to your body tag, then change the css to be this:
body.standard_label_style label{
//Your styles here
}
One of the most underused CSS tricks of all time: Give your bodies an id or class!
HTML:
<body id="standard_label_style">
<label>Hey!</label>
</body>
CSS:
#standard_label_style label{
the styles
}
will take the styles, while
HTML:
<body id="custom_label_style">
<label>Custom!</label>
</body>
Will not.
You are dealing here with CSS precedence. Declarations which are "more vague" (body tag, classes) are applied before declarations which are "less vague" (specific elements, inline CSS).
Thus your answer depends on how the stylesheet is defining label styles. If for example it says label {...}, then that's fairly specific, and your best bet is to use a more specific CSS style, see:
http://www.vanseodesign.com/css/css-specificity-inheritance-cascaade/ (good tutorial?)
CSS precedence
The level of "specificity" you need to override, as I said, depend on how specific your other stylesheet was. According to the link, "CSS embedded in the html always come after external stylesheets regardless of the order in the html".
There is also a chance that if you yourself define label {your custom css} that should work, if you import your stylesheet afterwards. It is what I would try first to see if it works. Have you tried this? What was the result?
Note that if you want to completely override the other stylesheet, you will need to also reset any CSS you are not using by settings its values to inherit or as appropriate.